As I was perusing Twitter, YouTube, and various other sites of humor and interest, I came across yet another contest to win some books. Being a follower and followed on Twitter by many authors, literary agents, and publishing houses, I realized something - where have they been all my life!

As a child, I never bought books unless they were 4 for a dollar at a church rummage sale or some such thing. I remember being super excited when the Christmas of my junior year of high school came and I got a collection of classics. It brought tears to my eyes when I saw a missed Borders sticker on one of them, knowing that I had books that had not actually been previously owned.

With the amazing anonymity but still openness to find new friends on Twitter, finding authors, book bloggers, and their websites have been increasingly easy, as is finding the contests for books that one desperately wants to own. I've even seen contests for signed Advanced Readers Copies - books that haven't hit the shelves yet but are looking for responses from the reading community.

And thats why I love the emergence of Twitter. I don't have to slog through the internet to slog through author websites just to look for interesting tidbits and just general fun. I get to get a link to a blog or website running a contest in which all you have to do is comment this or link that or follow on Twitter. Voila! I'm entered in a contest.

So thats the crux of the matter - find the authors (or bands, or actors, etc) that you love on twitter and keep an eye out for contests, clues, and other tidbits that you're interested in. You never know - Paramore may be giving out backstage passes and front row tickets to the 30,000th Twitter follower, or Rob Pattinson may agree to go on a date with a randomly picked blog comment between 8 am and 8 pm, or Stephenie Meyer may be giving out signed copies of a secretly finished Midnight Sun to first person who makes it to a book signing. None of the above is anything I know about - I just made it up. But how do I know if its not if I don't follow them on Twitter?

Twitter is the fastest way to get info on parties, movies, classes, anything. So get on the bandwagon (or branch) and enter those linked contests before it all gets ruined.